• RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    2·
    10 months ago

    Gotta love the movies where someone is falling only to be caught by a superhero who has accelerated to ludicrous speeds to catch the fallen and intercepts their trajectory at 90° just before hitting the ground. So the victims goes from 150mph down to some crazy speed at a 90° vector to their original path after being slammed into by superhero.

    They’re so dead.

    But the superhero Suspension of Disbelief Field extends to secondary characters in the story.

    • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      10 months ago

      You’re not wrong but there is one thing: hitting the ground is an instantaneous impact with a hard surface. Being swooped in some direction is a relatively slower process - the swooper is softer than concrete, and the change in velocity is spread over a longer period of time (even if it’s still “instantaneous” to the casual observer, it can be an “instant” 100 times longer than ground impact).

      It’s like landing on a mattress vs a hard floor - from a high enough height both are deadly, but I’d still pick the mattress.

      • Khrux@ttrpg.networkEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        I also assumed the swooper still decelerates you a little even if not by much. If you’re falling at 50m/s as you are trying to slow your fall by taking a skydiver pose, and a superhero caches you midair, you could decelerate over half a second and stop moving within 12 meters while still only experiencing 10g.

        12m is pretty tall but not insane in a superhero style piece of fiction where people may be dropped out the sky or from tall buildings. If you want to increase that g-force to the maximum survivable limit of near 100g (in theory), you’d only need to go from terminal velocity to 0m/s in 1.5 meters. Being reasonable, being caught 5 meters above the ground would be enough for most people to survive without major reprocussions, and is always better than hitting the ground.